


The Golden Heart of Paris

by RunWithWolves



Series: 30 Days of Cupcake [18]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8222300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunWithWolves/pseuds/RunWithWolves
Summary: Laura disappeared into thin air and now that Carmilla has her back, she's determined to get their happily ever after in Paris. So while Laura sleeps in her arms in the dusty library, Carmilla buys them a tiny run-down apartment that is everything Laura wanted. 
Next step: poetry and baguettes. And dealing with her mother.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's request week! That means I pull from the 70+ prompts you sent and spend 5 days turning them into stories. Today's prompt(s): 
> 
> \- OH THE PARIS THING TOO!  
> \- DO WRITE A PARIS THINGY! And don't make us bawl our eyes out if possible  
> \- Dude, please fic the Paris scene (if you find the time/inspiration of course)!!! That was definitely my favorite emotional moment of the first act because there was so much unspoken hope and love in those few moments and then reality came crashing back down. The contrast made me wanna cry because they want to be together so badly but the "five layers of history" are holding them back even though they have both grown:( Anyways, whether you decide to write it or not, have a great day Aria!!
> 
> Well... it's definitely got Paris in it... Wanted to try a different format too.

Once Carmilla gets her arms around Laura again, it takes her hours to make them let go. Laura had poofed out of existence and Carmilla had spent days trying to figure out how to get her back. Now that she’s here, Carmilla can’t seem to let go. So Laura falls asleep still locked in Carmilla’s embrace with her hands lightly curled against Carmilla’s chest. 

In the shadow of the library, Carmilla lets her fingers glide over Laura’s skin. Smoothing her hair. Exposing the smell of lavender that somehow always lives tucked behind Laura’s ear. Tracing the thin scar across her chest.

Carmilla’s mother is still out there, looking for her sacrifice at the sixth gate, but it’s hard to care when Laura is tucked up against her skin.

Her heartbeat is strong under Carmilla’s palm and her sleepy breathing makes the same silly little hitch at the end of every exhale. One day, she’d like to write a sonata to their beat. 

Now that she has Laura again, brought back by a power beyond Carmilla’s comprehension, she’s afraid to let go of the girl in her arms. 

The girl who loves her.

Loves her. 

After 300 years, there’s a girl who loves her. 

Carmilla smiles and presses it against the crown of Laura’s head to hide it. However, it’s that same smile that makes her arms move. She softly lifts Laura and places her gently onto her mattress on the floor, careful to drape a blanket over Laura and shove a pillow between Laura’s knees where Carmilla knows she prefers it.

Then she pulls out her cellphone, walking just far enough away that the light won’t wake Laura. 

Her thumbs fly fast, defying the idea that 300 years old vampires are technological luddites. It takes five hours but she somehow knows that the stars are still shining above the library when the email lands in her inbox. 

She is now the proud owner of a rickety apartment in Montmarte. 

In Paris. 

Carmilla shakes her head at herself and throws her phone on the table. Walking with just a touch of vampire speed, she’s back at Laura’s mattress and lifting Laura’s head to slide her lap where the pillow had just been. Laura grumbles, even in her sleep, but she quickly quiets again as Carmilla rubs small circles on her back. 

“We can go to Paris,” Carmilla whispers, “Cupcake. We could do it. Not just me. Us.”

Exhaling with that silly little hitch in her throat, Laura sighs and cuddles in closer as she arches her back into Carmilla’s hand. There is nowhere but the dark for Carmilla to hide her smile. 

Resting her head on the wall behind her, Carmilla’s eyes search the darkness for anyone who might intrude. Her mother is still out there. The apocalypse is just on the horizon. It shouldn’t have been the moment for stupid gestures. 

But Laura was back.

Laura loved her.

Perhaps hope wasn’t the most naive thing in the world.

#

There is the word. A book.

There is the chalice. A locket.

There is the blood. A sword.

There is the heart. The heart of a human given to the covenant and there is only one human who could make the sacrifice. Laura is crying and all Carmilla wants is to wipe away her tears. To take Laura in her arms and never let her go. 

Carmilla can’t fix this one. 

She can’t do anything more than smile a smile that won’t be trapped in the crown of Laura’s head and look at the sword that wants nothing more than her soul. Carmilla’s arms ache when Laura realizes that the liar’s heart, like all the talismans before it, is nothing but a metaphor. She just want to hold her in that library again, away from prophecies and mothers and impossible choices. She wants kisses and i love yous and the promise of Paris living just out of sight. 

Laura’s tiny broken heart had been repaired just in time for this. 

Her mother stands behind them, the gate cracked open behind her as light pours over them all, and screams at Laura. Screams and laughs and asks if Laura can really sacrifice her heart. Laura gave up an entire school to save it once and now she’s being asked to give it back. 

Ereshkigal is owed her debt. The sword demands its soul. The fourth talisman is needed. 

Nice and tidy. All in one go. 

The light from the gates glimmers off Laura’s tears and Carmilla searches the shadows created on Laura’s face. The dip of her collarbones. The curve of her nose. The corner of her mouth. Carmilla has kissed every one. Laura looks at Carmilla and her face is nothing but anguish, the broken cry of reality thrumming through her chest. The locket is around Laura’s neck, the book under her arms, and the sword is in her hand. 

Only one piece left.

Carmilla smiles and shakes her head, “No need for the waterworks, cupcake.”

Laura chokes back a sob that sounds the silly noise she makes when she exhales, “I love you.”

When Carmilla dies, all she can feel is Laura. 

The sword sticking out of her back as Laura releases it to cradle Carmilla in her arms. 

#

Mattie said that the underworld tasted like regret. 

Laura tasted like chocolate. 

#

It is a privilege to die if it means she is the heart of Laura Hollis.

She loves her. 

She loves her back. 

#

There is still chocolate on her tongue when her soul shivers. In a world of no heat or cold or feeling, she shivers. Carmilla feels something dragging over her non-existent skin, examining each finger as the slightest silk moves down her hand. 

It tightens at the wrist. 

There is a tugging sensation that is familiar in a way that has panic rising in her chest. A memory that she hadn’t realized she remembered of an 18 year old countess who was murdered at a ball. A girl who died cold and alone with no-one to hold her before she was yanked back to the light. Carmilla suddenly remembers the feel of her mother’s pull, a noose descending over her neck as she was yanked upwards and forced back into her body. The dark, ethereal cord that bound them together. She goes to jerk back on instinct, refusing to be her mother’s puppet again. 

But there is something inside that stops her. 

There is silk on her wrist. No cords on her neck. 

A gentle tug. No unyielding yank. No lack of breath or mind-numbing cold. 

There is chocolate on her tongue and suddenly, Carmilla knows. She does not know how or why or when but she knows who. The silken cord tugs again and although she has no eyes, Carmilla turns her gaze downward to find a small yellow glow latched onto her soul. The softest glow in a world of nothing. Yellow and bobbing and warm. 

Carmilla knows that warmth. 

So she follows the tug.

#

Her eyes flutter open and even though Carmilla can’t see Laura, she can feel her. Laura is wrapped around her with her face in Carmilla’s neck and a whispered call of, “Come back. Please. Please come back. I need you,” mumbled into her ear. 

On reflex, Carmilla’s arms come up to hold Laura closer. Impossibly closer. 

There is a sob in her neck with a little hitch at the end and when Carmilla shoves her nose behind Laura’s ear, it smells like lavender. 

She looks over Laura’s shoulder, unwilling to let her go enough to look at her. She finds Perry first and there is no trace of her mother in Perry’s eyes. Laf stands next to her, arm in a sling but still clutching tight to Perry’s hand. They nod at Carmilla but her eyes have moved on.

Mattie stands next to them both. Still flickering. 

Some kind of box in her hands. 

A game. 

And Carmilla knows. Knows what kind of deal Laura must have made. 

Mattie smiles and nods, fading away. She taps her wrist, “That’s quite the snack you found, kitten.”

Laf snorts as Perry turns into their shoulder. 

But Laura sniffles in her ear and Carmilla’s attention is drawn back to her arms. She pulls Laura close, rubbing small circles over her back and pushing her forehead against Laura’s as they crouch on the ground. 

“Well,” Carmilla can’t help but say, “That was a kick.”

Laura laughs. It’s watery and tired but beautiful just the same with a hitch right at the end. Carmilla gets her first look at Laura’s face again as Laura laughs with tears in her eyes. Clinging tight with one arm, Carmilla reaches up to brush them away. 

“You stupid vampire,” Laura says and catches Carmilla’s hand. Holding it against her face. 

Carmilla shrugs with a sheepish smile and it only makes Laura laugh more. 

There is a thin golden cord connecting her wrist to Laura’s, glowing like that same warm light that had tugged her in the darkness. 

Instead of asking about gods and death and rope and unspeakable games, Carmilla just kisses Laura. She kisses her and some of Laura’s laughter bubbles over to put a smile on her face and make kissing harder. They keep kissing anyway. 

Harder doesn’t mean less beautiful.

#

The only explanation Laura will ever give her comes when they are both crammed in the backseat of a bus. Laura is tracing the edges of Carmilla’s face like she’s worried that she’s somehow forgotten them in the two days Carmilla was gone. 

Two days.

Eternity. 

There is no longer a difference. 

There are words on Carmilla’s tongue. Fear and anger and fear and fear and fear bubbling under her skin at what Laura had wagered in a game to bring Carmilla back.   
But.

Laura runs her finger down the bridge of Carmilla’s nose and says, “How was I supposed to live without my heart?”

She has no answer. 

Carmilla’s arms wind around Laura and refuse to let her go until they see Papa Hollis at the bus station.

#

Laura’s old room has a giant TARDIS painted on the wall. 

Papa Hollis keeps trying to feed her chicken noodle soup. 

Laura loves her. 

#

She’s eating her third bowl of soup when Papa Hollis asks her if she has any plans now that she’s free of her mother-god-Dean. His gaze jumps from her to Laura and suddenly Carmilla can see concern written across his features. It settles somewhere in her bones when she realizes that some of that concern is extended to her as well. 

He hasn’t mentioned the golden thread connecting them. 

Eventually, she’ll learn that only she and Laura can see it. That conversation will take six years and an innocent question from Laf to burst forth later in the evening. 

Right now though, Laura has her fingers tangled up in the thread. She loops it over and over as though she’s trying to test the length. It just keeps getting longer and longer as Laura refuses to look up even though her whole body tensed at her father’s words. 

“I bought an apartment in Paris,” Carmilla confesses, watching in her peripheral as Laura freezes and then loops golden cord faster. 

Papa Hollis nods, “My wife and I had our honeymoon in Paris. I found it a little too, ah, busy but even I can’t deny that there’s something magical there.”

“I have some good memories there,” is all Carmilla says, “It seemed a good place to start making new ones.”

The conversation quickly flows on to memories and moments and Papa Hollis tells a story about going on vacation with Laura that has Carmilla biting her lip to keep from smiling too wide. Papa Hollis winks at her like he knows about the smile anyway.

Laura is still winding. 

By the time they go to bed, she’s accumulated several balls of yarn worth of silky thread around her arms. Her hands move faster and faster. Even as Carmilla slips into Laura’s old double bed, Laura just sits on the edge and keeps going. Her actions are shaky and Carmilla’s arms are already aching to hold Laura as she falls asleep. 

Something is wrong. 

There are so many things they haven’t spoken of that Carmilla takes a minute to try and sort through them to find the right answer. She settles on the most relevant, “We don’t have to go to Paris until you’re ready. The apartment will wait.”

Laura freezes. 

Then she turns, her arms full of softly glowing golden silk. The light bouncing off wide eyes and a dropped jaw, “You. You want me to come with you?”

She loves her. 

She thought Laura knew and Carmilla’s hands shake as she suddenly realizes her error. Practically flying across the bed, Carmilla gently grabs Laura’s face and says, “I love you.”

She thought Laura knew.

Laura’s eyes flutter closed and she sags forward, face buried in Carmilla’s skin. 

She thought Laura knew. 

“I love you,” Carmilla repeats. Her hands are making circles on Laura’s back and stroking her hair and doing anything they can to make up for the words that she somehow forgot to say after Laura got back. “I’ll go anywhere in this whole world so long as I am with you. Paris. Here. Anywhere. Even back to Silas. So long as I’m with you.” She pauses, “Although I’d strongly prefer if we stayed far away from Silas.”

Laura tilts back and her smile is easy. She drops the loops of silk and Carmilla can feel them slide back into her veins. “Definitely not Silas,” Laura agrees. She shimmies and Carmilla’s arms are suddenly full of Laura again as Laura straddles her. There is a smolder in Laura’s eyes as her fingers creep under Carmilla’s shirt and up her skin. 

They don’t let go all night. 

They’re still wrapped together when Laura slides on top of her again and raises an eyebrow, “Anywhere I want?”

#

Laura is wearing a press badge that says ‘Lois Lane’ while Carmilla is wearing a Superman costume and a pair of nerdy glasses when she steals one of the fries out of Laura’s poutine. 

As the gravy hits her tongue and Comic-con buzzes around them, Carmilla realizes that she hasn’t needed a sip of blood since she came back. 

#

The stale air of an airplane used to remind her of coffins. 

Now it tastes like the underworld. 

#

Laura still tastes like chocolate. 

But.

Laura doesn’t comment when Carmilla drinks half of the mini-bar on the airplane until she feels tipsy enough not to notice the smell of the air anymore. 

Some things don’t heal. They simply scar.

People were not made to be fixed. 

#

She loves her anyway.

#

Although Carmilla bought the apartment unseen, she still feels a hint of pride when Laura gasps and tells her that it’s perfect. She practically dances past the huge windows that had been Carmilla’s one request and Laura’s profile lights up with sunbeams. Pointing at various empty spaces, she starts talking about all of the second-hand furniture that they have to track down. 

Laura drops a water bottle and it rolls down the crooked floor. Eyes lighting up, Laura grabs another one and makes Carmilla race them with her down the floor. She grumbles but somehow they spend the whole night just rolling waterbottles across the floor, Laura putting on her best announcer voice as “bottle number 2 takes the starting line”.

Crappy apartment in Paris isn’t crappy at all. 

That first night, all they have is a mattress on the floor, bear spray from Laura’s father, and whatever had fit in their suitcases. Laura falls asleep while she’s writing out the list of everything that they’ll have to get the nice day and her face sinks into the mattress that doesn’t even have sheets on it yet. 

Her snores still make that funny sound. 

Carmilla tries to slide the paper out from under Laura’s head but she wakes, “Come to bed, Carm.”

“At least put on your pajamas, cupcake.” she says. 

“Nuh uh,” Laura shakes her head and her fingers are already wrapping in Carmilla’s clothes as the jet lag tries to take her again.

They sleep and a Parisian moon watches over them. 

#

The first thing Carmilla puts on the first bookshelf they make is a copy of poems. Laura laughs and pulls the same book from her bag, sliding it onto the shelf next to Carmilla’s copy. 

#

The poems will always be a good memory but they become something Carmilla had never expected. Both books will always right next to their bed, waiting for the moment they are needed. Innocent and beautiful and a promise. 

For every dream of hell and coffins and dead girls and mothers that wakes Carmilla in a cold sweat, Laura presses kisses to her forehead and reads poems until the tension fades from her skin. 

But.

Carmilla is not the only one who has nightmares. 

When Laura wakes with babbling and shouting of dead men and shifting time and games with no name on her tongue, Carmilla grabs the book. She holds Laura in her arms and she reads and reads and reads until Laura falls back asleep against her chest. 

Even when she puts the book down and gathers Laura closer, with the thump thump of Laura’s heart in her ears, Carmilla doesn’t let go until morning. 

#

Carmilla still doesn’t have a heartbeat.

The golden cord flows like blood in her veins. Flowing from Laura to her.

#

Baguettes melt on her tongue like air. Sneaking a piece from the bag, Carmilla sneaks into the apartment. She doesn’t need to call for Laura; she only has to follow the golden string on her wrist through the house to find Laura in the kitchen. Laura is sitting on top of the counter with a notebook pressed against her knees and scribbling furiously as the sun turns her hair to gold. 

Her arms wrap around Laura’s waist and she feels Laura jump slightly in surprise before sinking back into her touch. 

“I brought lunch,” Carmilla says. 

Laura hums, “And how much of the bread actually made it back to the apartment?”

“Like you need more sugar and buttery foods,” Carmilla says. She reaches out to rummage in the back and drops a carton of strawberries on laura’s lap.

Laura’s nose crinkles. 

“Caaaaaarm,” she whines. “Come on. Give me the good stuff.”

Carmilla shrugs and grabs a strawberry, “If you insist.” She sticks half of it between her teeth and moves up to kiss Laura who just stares at her. Then Laura starts giggling and leans down to bite half of the strawberry out of Carmilla’s mouth. The strawberry has barely disappeared before she’s leaning down for a real kiss. 

Her arms wrap around Carmilla’s back and haul her in closer, pressing Carmilla’s stomach against the counter. Lips moving softly together. There’s a rustle behind her but Carmilla doesn’t realize what happened until Laura is back away and happily shoving a chunk of baguette in her mouth. 

She grins as Carmilla pouts, “I was promised Paris and poetry and baguettes,” Laura said around a mouthful of bread, “You just keep bringing the bread, cutie.” She winks, a poor approximation of Carmilla. 

Then she taps Carmilla on the head with the loaf and tiny bits of bread immediately crumble into her hair.

#

One afternoon, Carmilla wakes from her nap with a sharp pain in her knee. She grabs the joint, inspecting the skin to find it perfectly clear. 

An hour later, Laura comes running through the door and babbling about class with a large bandaid wrapped around her knee. 

Carmilla says nothing. 

Laura catches her gaze anyway and her expression drops. She walks to Carmilla and gently touches Carmilla’s knee, “Did it hurt?”

Covering Laura’s hand with her own, Carmilla nods.

“You’re my heart,” is all Laura says. 

#

When Carmilla changes the bandaid for Laura, the blood is gold.

Carmilla knows what ichor looks like.

The blood of the gods.

She looks down at her wrist and the golden chord flowing from Laura to her. 

Ichor is strong enough for two.

#

She ends up in a bar fight that night, alcohol coursing through veins full of blood that’s not her own. Blood that’s not blood. It takes a punch to the jaw before Carmilla realizes what every hit she takes actually means. 

When she gets home, seeing Laura cradling her own jaw sobers Carmilla up immediately. Moving silently, Laura takes her hand and pulls Carmilla to the bathroom. Laura doesn’t have to ask where it hurts, just moving from bruise to cut to bruise. She ends by just resting her head on Carmilla’s chest, fingers tracing a faded puckered scar left by a silver arrow.

She doesn’t fight again.

She loves her.

# 

Mattie visits on occasion, flickering in and out of the moonlight. 

She tells Carmilla of deals made with death goddesses and of worthiness proven through unimaginable feats to gain the blood of gods and of what it really means to be someone’s heart.

I die. You die.

You die. I die.

#

Two bodies. One heart.

#

When the sun rises and Mattie flickers back to the land of the dead, Carmilla moves through the small apartment. She kicks a waterbottle and watches how it rolls down the floor. Carefully, she climbs into bed and watches Laura’s face. It shifts and flickers with every unseen dream and Carmilla can already tell that this will be a night of nightmares. 

It often is when Mattie stops by.

But Laura never complains. 

So Carmilla doesn’t sleep. She lays as close to Laura as she can without touching her and waits, timing her unneeded breathes to the beat of Laura’s heart. A heart that pumps no blood. Her thumb strokes the golden cord between them, imagining the pulse of ichor with every step. What Laura must have done to have been granted divinity, to demand divinity, to take divinity. 

What Laura must have done to share it.

For who becomes a god and immediately tries to give it away.

She loves her. 

She loves her back. 

When Laura starts shifting, Carmilla is there to smooth the wrinkle in her brow and gently coax her awake. Tonight, Laura babbles of swords and stabbing and talismans before Carmilla can finally pull her from sleep. Then she reaches for the poems, no daring to touch until Laura is ready. 

People aren’t meant to be fixed. 

She loves her. 

Carmilla starts reading and it takes two poems before Laura throws herself into Carmilla’s arms, breathing rapid as she buries herself away. Carmilla tucks her closer and keeps reading. Holding the book with one hand, Carmilla traces her fingers up and down Laura’s arm. Rubs circles on her back. Strokes gently over her hair. 

Once Carmilla gets her arms around Laura, she has no interest in letting go. Laura doesn’t seem inclined to go anywhere. After all, what does a god have but eternity? 

So Laura falls asleep still locked in Carmilla’s embrace with her hands lightly curled against Carmilla’s chest. 

In the shadow of Paris and the glow of a golden chord, Laura’s heartbeat is strong under Carmilla’s palm and her sleepy breathing makes the same silly little hitch at the end of every exhale. She wonders how the people of Paris don’t know that there is a god living in their city. That they don’t try to puzzle out why Laura would share a piece of that with Carmilla. 

Why she’d tie them together. 

Now that she has Laura again, brought back by a power beyond Carmilla’s comprehension, she’s afraid to let go of the girl in her arms. 

The girl who loves her.

Loves her. 

After 300 years, there’s a girl who loves her. 

They’ll easily have 300 more together. 

Carmilla smiles and presses it against the crown of Laura’s head to hide it. Tomorrow morning she will buy baguettes and try to get Laura to eat more fruit. Tonight, she is just a girl in Paris with poetry in her hands and the girl she loves in her arms. She has no intention of letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> Love will have it's sacrifices and I can't stop thinking about what they will be. So this. Together. Alive. Happy. But wounded. 
> 
> Basically you guys are amazing. Seriously. Still blown away. I would never be able to write at this pace without your encouragement, kudos, comments and [ tumblr stop-ins ](http://ariabauer.tumblr.com/). Thank you so much. They mean the world and I'm constantly awed by the time you take to help keep me writing. We've started moving into the exhaustion portion of this writing-binge. I give it a week before the tired peaks. 
> 
> This is the eighteenth story of '30 Days of Cupcake' where I'll be posting a unique Carmilla fanfic every weekday for 30 days. Stay stupendous. Aria.


End file.
